


Death by the Numbers

by BarbariousBarbarian



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic
Genre: But everyone does their best, Gen, No Romance, Not That It Helps, The situation is a bit crapsack, Things Blowing Up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-07
Packaged: 2019-03-27 09:25:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13877961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarbariousBarbarian/pseuds/BarbariousBarbarian
Summary: A ship at sea not only makes the sea available; it creates its own world, carrying and sustaining a society to withstand the chaos of the waters. So what happens when that world explodes?This is the legacy of the destruction of theBergamot.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Server merges are a blessing and a curse; they reinvigorate the game, but they also throw entirely different RPing universes together, and force you to choose which legacy name you're going to use as your main one.
> 
> This was the origin story for my legacy on Jung Ma (the _Bergamot_ Legacy). Most legacies are based on families or groups of friends; this particular crowd has only a single defining experience in common.

**The Hanger Bay**

A defeated warship is full of desperate men.

The hull lay shattered, torn and leaking. Inside, the _Bergamot_ was complete chaos. The Captain was dead. So was the XO. Damage Control had been hit close to the end - the emergency lighting now flared and flickered across broken consoles, illuminating the dead and dying. Globules of blood trickled along the floor, sucked through fresh fractures in the welds of bulkheads. Surrounded by sparking wires, lungs straining in the increasingly thin air, the Damage Control team clawed at shut hatches. On the other side, shipmates ripped and strained against the hatch the DC boys and girls lay behind, but it was sealed tight by the force of atmospheric pressure. They did their best before turning in despair for the escape pods.

The ship had other problems. In Missile Battery One, a piece of insulation torn free from inside the walls had caught fire. The blaze had spread rapidly, threatening the remainder of the ship. The Battery One Missilemen had fought valiantly with hand-held extinguishers and their naked hands, but the fire crew had died with Damage Control, and the chemicals in Missile One resisted their best efforts. At a critical moment, the intense heat caused the Chief Petty Officer’s breathing apparatus to fail, he died from suffocation. The Junior Petty Officer had subsequently withdrawn behind the inner bulkhead and attempted to vent the Battery into space. The missile propellant, however, was by then burning fiercely. While much of the material was flushed successfully, it was not enough; metal melted like wax, and the fire burned clean through the floor of Missile One. Molten liquid mixed with chemical slag dripped down into the port-side crew quarters, where it found good fuel. The white-hot mixture oozed and dripped down again, burning clean through Port Emergency Escape.

The ship afire, Damage Control gone, the skipper dead. The cruiser _Bergamot_ was now rubble and wreckage. A thousand people were trapped inside.

The only escape now was through Hanger Bay Four.

 

**The Escape Pod**

 

When the _Bergamot_ was hit by a kinetic projectile, the bow had been sheared off. The only survivors of the forward sections were those sealed into the torpedo room. Without power to assess the damage, air bleeding into space, the Ensign in command had ordered the crew to abandon ship. Only a single escape pod lay undamaged – designed for a maximum of six crew-members. There were ten living people inside the pod.

The Ensign in question – Luanda Chellikov – now crouched near the hatch of the pod, working grimly on a wounded Zebrak. Periodically the nearest crewmen would shove back against the press of bodies, trying to hold open a little space for her to work. Bandages and other paraphilia were being pressed hand-to-hand back from the storage lockers. Luanda had not used the saline. Her clothes were now tacky with blood, and the reek of it fouled the limited air. The sounds of someone retching could be heard clearly over the roar of the main engine and the shuddering of the pod itself.

The Zebrak died in Ensign Luanda Chillikov’s arms. There he stayed. There was no way to jettison his body, nor space to stow it.

Nine.

 

**The Boarding Party**

When the _Bergamot_ jumped in-system, the strike force was away immediately. They joined the assault pods spilling from the side of every ship in the Republic fleet, dropping towards the Devaron space-station.

The soldiers of 3 Platoon, 2/1 Battalion – callsign “Foxhound” – clutched at their straps as the pod came in hot. The soldiers opposite him reflected a range of emotions. One mouth moved in a litany which was completely inaudible where he sat, the shuddering of the capsule drowning out all other sound. Lieutenant Harare Seengel hold grimly onto the grab-bars, flinching as the squaddie next to him retched. If vomit splattered around the interior, there would be no avoiding it.

“Pod opens in three minutes!” The petty officer in charge of the pod flashed an orange light three times, and soldiers checked their buddy’s harness one last time. Left arms raised when this task was complete. Harare looked down the line and saw all was good. He slapped the Staff Sargent on the back and dropped his arm, punching information into his onboard tac computer. Staff Hoosley slapped the next man and re-gripped the seat handles. The next man slapped the next again, and the next again. The arms dropped one by one.

“Pod opens in ninety seconds!” The orange light flashed twice. This was the point of no return. Any malfunction now would have to be dealt with while in combat.

Harare checked his command display, saw nothing but green lights. He double-checked the nav information for the station’s comms system, before thumbing it off for landing.

“Pod opens in thirty seconds!”

Feet shuffled flat onto the floor, and knuckles went white as hands gripped just fractionally too hard. Helmets switched from filtered air to onboard oxygen supplies. The illumination was switched off, leaving only red emergency lights running along the floor

“Pod opens in fifteen!” A green light switched on, and stayed on.

Harare sat up as straight as he could, pressing his spine back against the seat padding. He could hear nothing but the straining metal capsule around him.

“Pod opens in ten! Eight! Six! Four! …brace, brace, brace!”

There was a thunderous, indescribable crash. Harare was thrown violently forward in his harness, the air whooshing out of him. The emergency lights flickered. With a bang, explosive release cables ripped straps away from seats and soldiers leapt up. Getting out of the pod was the first and only priority – one grenade in the small space could kill every soldier inside. His people were well trained; the lead scout was already spilling out of the hatch, closely followed by her cover. Gunfire erupted. Targeting information was shoved onto his tac display. Around him, the computer identified other assault pods piercing the hull of the space station and depositing his soldiers inside.

The Lieutenant commanding 3 Platoon, 2/1 Battalion – “Sunray Foxhound” – picked up his canon, and ordered his people into the assault, sending 2 Section forward along the secondary perimeter corridor. The communications room lay deep in the heart of the ship. Time was the one thing they didn’t have.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Hanger Bay**

Lieutenant Commander Bissau Torpen was the Commanding Officer of Hanger Bay Four. She was God. Cool-eyed and crisply dressed, she was currently the heart of a terrible storm, and the most important person in the _Bergamot’s_ universe.

Across the ship, the crew had fallen back. With increasing panic, they had struggled against fire, damage, and the void. They had failed to stop each. Officers and NCOs had organised, evacuated, and perished in staggering numbers. Enemy fire had continued to rip and tear at the battered hulk, channelling men and material along a few narrow routes to safety. All of those routes now terminated in Hanger Bay Four.

The bay itself was now crowded with hundreds of people. Bissau was hoping to evacuate a third of them. She clasped her hands behind her back to hide their trembling, pacing with an unseeing eye along the lines of the wounded. The neat ranks of stretchers contrasted with the heaps of exhausted stretcher-bearers racked out on the floor. Men in burnt, chemical-soaked clothing lined up in orderly queues by divisions, waiting for a ship.

Bissau was battling time, and to save anyone at all she spent blood to buy it. Hundreds of people had been ordered back out past the perimeter again – back out with fire extinguishers, welding torches, and protective equipment. People she was dooming to die in the dark.

Even the Hanger Bay itself was conspiring against her – it had never been intended to dock larger ships. Instead, Bissau held command of a small facility designed to park small runabouts and minor visitors. The tugboats and launches now streaming towards the leaking wreckage of the _Bergamot_ were too large, unable to dock. The smaller vessels could only lift ten, fifteen men at a time. Not enough, not fast enough.

Bissau walked out to the end of the Hanger to stare at the darkness of space. Space which both trapped the survivors aboard, but also offered escape. Space vast enough that a ship of any size could hang beside the _Bergamot_ , if only the crew could reach them. She was so close, she could feel the ozone of the forcefield crackle in her hair.

Bissau turned to her second-in-command – a youthful Midshipman who had been placed in Hanger Bay Four after displaying no discernible command talent. At the moment, Bissau wouldn’t have traded him for a hundred other officers. The Middy had ice for blood.

“With respect, the Hanger is too small,” he was saying, almost casually. He had just stepped away from overseeing the disposal of the dead, which were being piled in a non-functional airlock. “We need to get the bigger ships alongside. The launches could carry thirty crew. The tugboats can lift fifty. At the current rate, the ship will implode after less than a hundred people are removed from this deck. We need deep space.”

Bissau nodded slowly, only half-listening. She pointed at the communications mast. It was less than two hundred meters outside the Hanger Bay door - a slender pole jutting out from the side of the Bergamot’s hull. “In your professional judgement, how far out does that go?”

The Middy blinked, leaning forward. There was silence, except for the dull booms of explosions deep in the Bergamot’s hull. “Far enough,” he eventually said.

Bissau turned with purpose, straightening her jacket. She made a sharp gesture at the exhausted-looking mechanist’s mate, beckoning him over. “Then let’s get it working.”

 

**The Escape Pod**

After six hours in the claustrophobic pod, one of the crewmembers abruptly snapped. “Let me out! Let me out!” he screamed, shoving and smashing and struggling for space. “Let me out!” He began ripping people out of his way, scrambling for the hatch.

“Calm down!” snapped the Ensign, but she was ignored by everyone. Cramped, crowded chaos had erupted. Yelling and screaming echoed from the walls, filling the space with an assault of sound. Bodies heaved and snarled, trampling the dead man. The panicking man kept reaching for the hatch. Opening it would vent the pod out into space.

“No, stay back!” Luanda kept yelling, but it was no use. She struggled against the crush, but was shoved unceremoniously against the wall by the press. The largest occupant of the escape pod – a huge, troublemaking Twi’lik, managed to shove enough people aside to make his way through. “Don’t open that door, boy!” he yelled menacingly. “Don’t you frekking do it!”

The human reached a hand towards the door.

With a growl, the Twi’lik grabbed him and they struggled. More confused yelling, shoving. Stray limbs flew. The crush was extreme. Luanda shoved away the dead Zebrak, twisting, panting against the cold wall of the pod, trying to turn. When she finally managed it, she saw the Twi’lik had the grabbed the human by his hair and was smashing his face into the door’s wheellock. The human screamed incoherently. Blood flew everywhere.

When finally the screaming stopped, the human’s head was a wreck of blood and brains, and the Twi’lik was covered in both. He turned to the now silent pod, and stared at them all.

Luanda Chellikov, the sole surviving officer, was now in charge of nothing.

Eight.

 

**The Boarding Party**

Lieutenant Harare threw a grenade around a corner and listened with satisfaction to the disciplined fire echoing along the corridor. 3 Platoon, 2/1 Battalion knew their craft. The hapless Imperials standing in their way were quickly and easily eliminated, soldiers bounding past one another in a choreographed orgy of violence. Best of all, all the lights on the Command Tac Computer still shone green – no killed or wounded, no malfunctions, all accounted for. His heart was satisfied. He tapped Corporal Kane of 1 Section on the shoulder, and directed him to flank a stubborn enemy turret.

“Staff!” he called, turning for the Secco as the booming retorts of concussion rounds went off around him. The Sgt nodded to him and looked expectant. Life was good. Harare pulled out a map and tore off one armoured glove. “We’ll go this way,” he said, tracing the route. “At this corridor we’ll branch left.”

Suddenly Harare’s tac computer went insane. Numbers, warnings, and data began to flood the screen, scrolling faster than anyone could have read it. Harare boggled. The stream of information were damage reports. Something was seriously wrong aboard the Bergamot.

Suddenly another advisory warning flashed, red and hollow. The Staff and Harare stared at in in horror. The exfiltration ship had been destroyed.

The Lieutenant sucked in a breath, before letting it out slowly. He and the Staff eyed each other grimly. Around them, Strike Force Foxhound battled on oblivious. But the world had changed, and with it, the plan had changed. The plan had changed a lot. And the new one was simply; keep his men and his kit moving; keep them moving far enough apart that they couldn’t be sealed in; keep them moving close enough together that they couldn’t be defeated in detail. Keep moving until rescue arrived.

But first, they still needed to take the comms room.

Harare pulled a vent-cover from the wall, and motioned a Lance-Jack inside.


End file.
